vegan food in Austin TX

Monthly Archives: September 2009

So the thing is, I might have gone a little overboard lately with the Hatch Chiles. First I blogged about Chowder and then I made hummus but what you probably don’t know is that nearly every single thing I have made in the last 3 weeks has had Hatch peppers in it. The whole thing has gotten totally out of control and I realize now, here at the end of Hatch season, that I might have gone a little overboard and that’s OK. I present you with one final recipe in case you still have some Chiles from Hatch season or want to roast some regular peppers and add them instead. It is not at all difficult or complicated but it does take a really long time to come together. This is a perfect Sunday dinner kind of meal, especially of you crave Tex Mex style southern comfort food on Sundays. The way I recommend making it, if you try the recipe, is to get the gravy sauting, cut up your vegetables for the pie, and then watch an episode (or 2) of “It’s Always Sunny in Philidelphia” while you wait for your beans to finish and then bake the pie, that is the lazy smurf way to do it. This is my favorite method for making vegan gravy, if you have never tried it with beans you are in for a treat.I made individual pot pies but you can also make one big one in a casserole dish or pie plate.

For the

Chile Gravy

Chop and Saute

2 cloves garlic
1 stalk celery
3 shallots

Add

2 cups broth
3 cups black eyed peas (I used fresh but you could use canned or dried but only 2 cups if you do dried)
1.5 cups corn
4 roasted chile peppers
Cook until beans are cooked through

Add

Blend

and season with salt and pepper to taste

To Assemble

Just add the vegetables to the pie reseptacle and then mix in the gravy. The gravy recipe makes a lot so you might have some left over which you can serve on the side, the vegetables will cook down so really pack them in and top with pie crust. Bake for about 40 minutes at 400 degrees and enjoy!

Did you know that pigs are supposed to have the same mental capacity of a three year old human? I know that has nothing to do with pot pies but I wanted an excuse to post this picture.

Over the summer I got to take a ceramics class with a wonderful teacher, Judith Simonds, and I really enjoyed it and I learned a lot. My pieces are finally all done and graded and I wanted to post them because I am just so proud! I took pictures of them today out at Laguna Gloria and I think they turned out really nice. Our first assignment was to recreate and ancient sculpture and I fell in love with this old Ganesh statue from Sri Lanka that now sits in a museum in Vietnam. I thought it was going to be really easy. It was not, but I love how he turned out! I think this is my favorite picture.Our next assignment was to envision the first sculpture so I made a Ganesh Jr., who kind of ended up looking like fetal Ganesha because he has the tiniest little legs and arms. Then the last assignment was to make a zoomorphic vessel. I really need a piggy bank because we always have change all over the place and I was inspired by pictures of pygmy hippos that I decided to do a Pygmy Bank.If you want to see more pictures there are some on my flickr page. All the pieces are really big and I am excited to bring them all home, they have been in my office for the last few weeks. (PS I got an A in the class wahoo!

When I was in Portland a few weeks ago I got to go to the vegan stip mall. It is always so weird to go to places that are entirely vegan because you are so used to asking questions all the time (there isn’t any cheese on there, right? Can you tell me if these shoes are made of leather?) and then you go to an all vegan place and it kind of blows your mind. You still want to ask the people working there a bunch of questions and they generally sigh and say yes, it’s vegan, everything here is vegan, and then feel silly. Going to a strip mall where every store is vegan was even harder to wrap my head around and I didn’t really trust it but it is true! It was fun to get soy curls and look around at Food Fight and I loved everything I got at Sweet Pea Bakery but Herbivore was the coolest shop for me because they appeared to have every vegan cookbook and zine ever made. I wanted to buy everything! Damnit I don’t need any more cookbooks! Today they are donating a percentage of their profits to good causes so if you haven’t bought anything from there now is the time to do it! I think I am finally going to get Yellow Rose Recipes.and I really want this walletand I am veery curious about the book “A Vegan Taste of Eastern Europe” but I can’t find any reviews! So if someone has it let me know….

For the last 3 months it has been about a hundred degrees and sunny. Then it was labor day and now summer is suddenly gone. It’s been raining ever since which is great because we really need the rain but man, I am not ready for summer to be over! I haven’t even gone tubing yet or eaten enough tomatoes. The good thing is that figs are in season and organic strawberries are abundant so it isn’t a complete loss yet.I was inspired by dragonfly pie to make some hatch green chile hummus and it was really simple and good. I think you can add these peppers to anything and it would be good, here is the recipe

People in Thailand eat more chile peppers than anyone else in the world. I read that our region of North America is starting to gain on them. The town of Hatch in New Mexico makes probably the best chile peppers in the world and we get them here in Austin. For a brief period of the year, right as school is starting again, you can smell it in the air; roasting chile peppers. I made a corn chowder over the weekend with the hatch peppers and then yesterday I made an even better one. Not only was it tastier, but it is healthier since I added kale to what is normally not an extremely nutritious meal. I love chowder. It kills me that I can’t get it in restaurants. At whole foods I often check all of their 33 soups and the two vegan ones are never chowder and there is just no reason for that. Chowder is really easy to veganize, just substitute rice milk for the dairy and add some mashed potatoes. This soup is great, if you want to make it with another kind of roasted pepper that would work but it might not be as magical.

Cook the potatoes in the vegetable broth until they are starting to fall apart, about 20 minutes in the microwave or on the stove top. When they are done mash about half of them with a potato masher. In the meantime start sautéing the shallots, chop the rest of the ingredients in order and add them to the pot as you finish chopping. First add the celery, then the poblano and the garlic. Once the shallots have started to brown add the kale, the hatch peppers, and the corn. Once the kale is wilted add the potato mixture, the rice milk, the sage and the salt. Let the whole mixture cook covered for about 20 minutes. Add the lemon and additional milk or broth if you want it a little thinner and check for seasoning. Now you have awesome soup that you can eat with some crusty bread if that’s how you roll. Enjoy!